Taking the Money for Grant(ed) – Part I

Two of the more dubious claims related to climate research funding are:

1) Scientists are getting rich from research grants!

2) Scientists holding an anti-AGW viewpoint cannot get funding!

The first question can be answered by asking another question:

How many climate scientists are driving a Mercedes sports coupe or other $100,000+ car into a three car garage in a posh gated neighborhood?

Not convinced? I will delve deeper into claim #1 later in this post and also in a future post (Part II).

The second question is easier to answer. There are a few publishing scientists that strongly disagree with the established consensus that humans are the primary drivers of modern climate change and yet they seem to find funding without much difficulty. These include, among others, Dr. Richard S. Lindzen (MIT), Dr. John R. Christy (UAH), Dr. Roy Spencer (UAH/NASA), and Dr. William M. Gray (CSU). Wikipedia hosts a list of others and many of those scientists appear to be funded.

Getting back to claim #1. Are scientists getting rich from grant funding? I will use myself as a case study in this post and, in Part II, I will write about others’ experiences.

I recall a lecture I gave on climate change back in April 2009. After I was finished, a gentleman told me that he though the whole thing was a hoax so that we scientists could get rich from funding. Before I even had a chance to reply, a voice from the crowd (my wife) yelled out, “Trust me, I can tell you, he isn’t making any money from this. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing!” The truth hurts, doesn’t it?

I am currently listed as a co-investigator (co-I) on a NASA grant proposal that is to be submitted this month. The principal investigator (PI) is a colleague of mine who I will call Prof. X and the grant budget is requesting $437,232.67 over a three year period. Funding from the proposal will be used to create a learning institute to educate secondary education teachers about climate change. These teachers will be trained to use climate data from NASA in order to incorporate the latest climate change science and data into their curricula. Essentially, NASA will be using some of its funds so that our children will become more informed.

Assuming the grant is approved, it would be easy for somebody doing a cursory scan of NASA grants to shout out that “Prof. X received a grant for $437,232. He is getting rich from research funding! No wonder he claims that humans are causing global warming. He is in it for the money!” Sound familiar? It is often the case where a climate scientist receives a large grant and then there are cries of outrage from those that have no idea of how the money gets spent.

Here is how the $437,232,67 from my grant will be spent over three years:

Participant/Trainee Support Costs = $152,678.50 (135 teachers will participate over three years)

Consulting Services = $4000 (To assess the curricula developed)

Indirect Costs: $76,064.25 (Administrative fees and other fees that are not collected by those named on the grant)

Direct Labor = $204,489.92

$204,489.92 is what the investigators on the grant are paid over three years. There are six (6) of us working on this grant. Three of us, including the PI, will receive the majority of that amount. I will receive $48,264.75 over three years ($16,088.25 per year). The PI will receive $49,175.31 over three years.

Imagine that! What appeared to be a grant for Prof. X for $437,232.67 really nets him $16,391.77 per year.

But, even that is very misleading. At Suffolk County Community College (SCCC) and many other institutions, grant money can only REPLACE teaching load. Grant money does not add to our salaries. For me, $16,088.25 per year equates to 11.8 credit hours of overload teaching. (Overload hours are those that go above the base salary of fifteen credit hours per semester. I typically teach 20 overload hours per year which is four classes.) Rounding to 12 hours, I will give up 2.5 classes per year in order to participate in this grant endeavor.

Bottom line: If the grant proposal is accepted, my W-2 will not change for year 2010. Instead of all of my salary coming from SCCC, most will come from SCCC and some will come from NASA.

Unfortunately, the Mercedes will have to wait a little longer.

Claim #1 is also nonsense! (Too bad for me.)

Part II will examine how grant budgets work at other institutions. Feel free to comment on this post and let me know about your grant experiences.

Related

43 Responses

Exactly right! And good for using a real-world example. I work with contracts awarded by NIH and it’s similar in that world, although instead of teaching offsets, an investigator is just required to have varying levels of his or her salary come from grants or contracts. The salary level remains fixed, but the university’s contribution is adjusted according to the outside support.

ARC grants in Australia are quite prestigious and mostly go to Universities and government research institutions. There are various categories of grants. This page lists the salaries:http://www.arc.gov.au/applicants/salaries.htm.

ARC grants are probably at the more generous end of the scale to grants from other funding bodies, such as industry research funding bodies.

As you can see, the salaries are not exhorbitant by any stretch of the imagination and are often/generally below the salaries paid to scientists in government funded positions and private corporations. I don’t have a list of comparable salaries paid by government agencies, but job advertisements or public sector/university websites in Australia might be used for comparison.

In Australia, research grants are never paid in addition to normal salary. They are only paid to fund extra positions required for the research, or to fund equipment and sometimes facilities or other capital items.

Government research institutions do not normally permit scientists to earn money outside their salary from work-related activities and most grants are for equipment and additional temporary staff.

Universities used to allow staff to earn extra funding from private activities such as consulting, but most these days either limit personal earnings from such activity or prohibit it. In any case, it has no relationship to research grants.

I’m sure Al Gore is getting rich either. Still awaiting one solid piece of evidence that mankind causes global warming. The earth has warmed and cooled innumberable times over millions of years without industry to blame it on. Cycles are just that…cycles. I think you gents should take solar activity more into you contrived computer models.

I am glad to hear that you never see them but I see these claims often enough on blog comments that I felt the need to address them here. If you recall, I had somebody make these claims to my face in a public forum.

A simple Google search reveals examples. For example, during the CRU hack, I saw the claims made at RC on several occasions. Gavin was accused of getting rich because he secured a 7 figure grant recently.

will your analysis consider the implications (in terms of advancement, criticism by peers, etc.) of professors that are pro, neutral or con the agw theory? judith curry comes to mind – it will be interesting to see where she goes now that she has moved towards the center.

Mandia: Now THAT is a very good question for which I do not have an answer. This post is to rebut the money claim which is easy to do. I would never state that scientists are not human so there are always politics. I imagine that holding a strong opposing view might make one’s career path more difficult.

people like tamino support eli rabbet’s assertion that all scientists that do not believe the theory should be dismissed (exact wording forgotton as the link is now broken).

Mandia: I do not agree with that view. However, people like S. Fred Singer and others who knowingly mislead the public should be held accountable.

Being open to different points of view, based on valid but conflicting interpretations of data, is not the same as simply accepting all opinions, no matter how ill-founded, equal weight. The New England Journal of Medicine is not obligated to include papers by homeopaths until the basic foundation of homeopathy is validated, a highly unlikely occurrence. Likewise, as the controversy on a Florida campus demonstrated, a medical college is not obligated to provide chiropractic training .

Becoming a sell-out anti-AGW science advisor is, very likely, the one and only chance many researchers will have to leave behind drab, obscure and humdrum toil for a moment of fame and fortune. Maybe even girls. If you want to make your master’s degree (in SCIENCE!) pay off, emailing your résumé to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is your best bet!

Yes, at academic institutions, salaries are set by the institution. A grant saves the university money, but it does not put money in my pocket. It may help me indirectly–getting grants is good for advancement, which will move me into a higher salary scale, but academic salaries top out at levels that are decent, but still modest compared to what say, corporate executives or lawyers make. Nobody gets wealthy off of grants. Converting grant money to personal use is not easy to do even if you are dishonest, because as far as the university is concerned, that money belongs to them, not you, and you are only administrating it. So they keep pretty close track of where the dollars go. Perhaps you can winkle a couple of meeting junkets a year, or a better computer than you would be able to afford otherwise, but that’s about it. Scientists who are wealthy have made their money from patents, or consulting, or they started a successful company.

Now this is not to say that science is not a pretty sweet gig. It is, after all, a job in which you can receive a moderately decent salary for doing what you enjoy doing, which is more than most people get. Yes, there are many jobs that pay better, but few of them are as much fun. But what is it that scientists enjoy? Making real discoveries. Knowing something new about nature for the first time. Fabricating fake research sounds like no fun at all. And besides, if you are going to conduct a fraud, science is still not a very lucrative field in which to do it–you’d do a lot better setting up a Ponzi scheme, or starting a company based on a fake discovery. Or becoming a critic of global warming. After all, there are many wealthy interests who may be harmed by CO2 reduction efforts, and who might be willing to pay you to cast doubt on global warming. And if you do it outside of an academic institution, you don’t have to worry about academic salary scales, or institutional auditors keeping track of how you spend your money. The sky’s the limit. Now *that* might be lucrative enough to compensate you for the annoying work of concocting and maintaining a fraud!

The Climate Research Unit at East Anglia had profited to the tune of at least $20 million in “research” grants from the Team’s activities.

Hey, will someone give me a research grant for a study of forest fires upwind of Mann’s tree-ring site? I hypothesize that the increased temps, carbon dioxide, and ash (fertilizer) from large enough fires would have impacted the width of the rings. Surely there must have been some over the last thousand years. A grant of, say $2 million would allow my co-researchers and me to meet in Tahiti to discuss the project, and pay someone in Russia to undertake the work. Thanks for your support!http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/01/lord-moncktons-summary-of-climategate-and-its-issues/

These rock star scientists dined with the elite and feasted on government grants

JB,
What was your post about?
I thought you were linking to claimed proofs of these shedloads of money climate scientists are making off AGW? You shared 13 links, and not one of them offers up what you promised: that is some claims/proof of the oodles of money scientists were raking in!

#5 had nothing about Mann’s 4.5mil – though it did bitch about more grant money going to studying the Himalayan glaciers – what’s wrong with that? Or do you suggest ignoring what’s happening up those valleys?

#6 come on man, gag me with a spoon – Lord Monckton the serial liar extraordinar, this is who you consider a reliable source? I thought you were “sceptical.” Besides nothing about money there either, just hawking his “ClimateGate – caught green handed” SPPI garbage.

#8 has nothing about Mann’s .5mil, rather it’s about last years cold snap in Florida proving AGW is a hoax

If you claim you have proof, shouldn’t you at least offer links that have to do with what you’re claiming to prove?
Or was this just sarcastic humor that went over my head?

Although it was interesting reviewing Mr.WUWT’s website again, it is an amazing bit of political theater and attack smoke’n mirror… same as it ever was.

I’d like to translate the skeptics’ megaphone blasts into a concern that they haven’t articulated, but certainly feel, and should be relevant to this discussion.

Running an academic research department succesfully requires a more or less constant search for funding. Research ‘themes’ are broadly mapped out by funding organisations, such as the EU frameworks and NSF papers.

If you had the patience to trawl through the skeptic weblogs, you would find a number of commenters who claim to be researchers who have said that they rewrote grant proposals to include climate change as part of their study (obviously it’s possible that the same commenter dropped the comment on various weblogs, but it doesn’t seem that way), and others have remarked that the establishment frame of reference acts to intimidate researchers who are (scientifically) skeptical about certain lines of work while rewarding those who toe the line.

At the time, nobody was thinking that scientists would get rich this way. The thinking was that it kept a stream of funding going that insured employment.

I don’t think some skeptics have thought this through very carefully–even in business people distinguish between revenue and profit–and I think their reaction after reading your ‘case study’ would be ‘Oh. Yeah. I guess that’s right.’

Scott, me and you must be living on separate planets. I worked in climate change over 30 years ago. Many people told me that I could have a nice career if I got on the right side of AGW, meaning to support it. I’m unemployed. Last week I had an interview to be a sabbatical replacement. The salary was 40,000. When AGW came up, I lied about what I really believed. I need that job.
Michael Mann gets $160,000/yr to make up numbers. He gets a travel and expense account on top of that. If you don’t think that’s rich, you have it too good.
Both claims that you are challenging are true from my point of view.
The few “skeptics” who are making money are simply political hacks cultivating a wedge issue.

Scott, Try this. Go to a local public research university. Find the faculty parking lot. Drive around and count the Mercedes and other luxury cars. Count the fuel efficient economy cars. That should give you a good idea of what is really happening.

Marty, I believe Dr. James Hanson is still driving a ten year old Volvo. :)

I live up the road from one of the top research institutions in the world: SUNY at Stony Brook. The faculty parking lots there show cars that are much less exciting than those of the students. The same is true at SCCC where I work, although SCCC is not a research institution.

I went to graduate school for six years, making on average $18,000 a year. I did a two year post doc, making a decent salary, but not rich by any means. And you know what-I’m not complaining because I get to work at something I love. But the idea that I would go into this field (instead of finance, business, law, medicine) because I wanted to get rich is just simply ludicrous.

As for some scientists getting blackballed: Pielke(s), Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Singer are all quite gainfully employed or emeritus.

I am pleased to see this blog, having been directed here from ClimateSight. My research is on the geological record of climate change, and my research is funded under both the Australian Research Council (ARC), and now in Canada by NSERC. Another poster has described how things work in Australia / ARC (and I agree with the description), so I’ll stick to talking about NSERC and Canada.

NSERC won’t pay my salary and won’t even buy out my teaching. I can buy equipment, pay for travel for research and attending conferences, and pay salaries to graduate students and other research personnel. I can’t use grant funds for sabbaitical travel or living costs. Any items I buy remain the property of my university.

I haven’t had someone at a presentation accuse me of lining my pockets, but I teach environmental science at Brandon University (Manitoba), and climate change is always a topic in my senior class. I have had undergraduates in class make the point ‘Climate change researchers are doing the research so they can get big grants to spend on themselves’. I refute this using my own circumstance, but I think examples from other scientists whose research is more in the ‘front line’ of AGW than mine is more instructive.

[…] personal advantage to producing research that shows that human-caused global warming is a crisis. Their funding isn’t dependent on their producing such results, and I doubt whether clean energy companies are making sufficient profits yet to be paying these […]

[…] Piles of scientific evidence exist that have convinced 98% of climate scientists that global warming is occuring and that it is caused by man’s activities. Why, then, do some Americans continue to deny the whole idea of global warming? From presidential candidates to average Americans, some people continue to oppose scientific evidence. These people either claim “it’s natural warming” (of course, they are neither scientists nor historians), or they claim that scientists make huge money off of fears of global warming https://profmandia.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/taking-the-money-for-granted-%E2%80%93-part-i/ […]

obviously like your web-site however you have to take a look at the spelling on several of your posts. Many of them are rife with spelling issues and I in finding it very bothersome to tell the reality on the other hand I’ll surely come back again.

[…] professor Scott Mandia wrote two posts at his blog describing exactly how this works. Essentially, principal investigators have their salary reduced by some amount to account for the additional income from research […]